The video that the After School Satan group is promoting isn’t appealing to young children per se, but the Church of Satan is hoping that they can offer clubs centered around philosophy and religion the same way non-secular Christian-based clubs have been doing for decades.
“It’s critical that children understand that there are multiple perspectives on all issues, and that they have a choice in how they think,” said Doug Mesner, the Satanic Temple’s co-founder.
The goal of the group―which does not promote a belief in any higher being, Satan or otherwise―is to counteract the influence of religion on school grounds.
The Satanic Temple is specifically trying to form clubs in elementary schools that already have Good News Clubs, which are affiliated with evangelical Christianity.
An After School Satan Club would show kids that “there are people with distinctly different religious points of view that are still leading moral and productive lives,” said Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves (who also goes by the name Douglas Mesner).
The Good News Clubs are “an after-school program run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship.” They currently enroll around 178,000 children, according to Moises Esteves, a vice president with the group. Their purpose is to “evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that school districts that otherwise allow outside groups to run after-school programs in their facilities can’t simply bar the Good News Clubs because they teach religious values.
Amy Monsky, the former executive director of the Atheist Alliance of America who also has experience in youth programs, has been working with the Satanic Temple to develop a curriculum for its after-school program, which will be run by volunteers. She said it will cover “several areas of knowledge like science and art, philosophy and culture.”
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Photo: After School Satan
Source: After School Satan, Washington Post, Huffington Post
The Church Of Satan is not affiliated in any way with after school programs. This program is being conducted by The Satanic Temple! “Since the Church of Satan only allows legal adults as members, and since we are against all forms of possible proselytizing, we do not sponsor “clubs” in schools. We encourage intelligent young people who have an interest to study our literature, and they may ask questions of us directly should they not understand any of our principles. We have many responsive spokespersons to handle such queries. In general, our written materials are quite straightforward and without the… Read more »
Love it! I personally think it should be called “The Better News Club”, but understand the sponsor’s name wants to get some positive press.